Archive for the ‘Sketches’ Category

I’ve been fighting with my computer the last couple of days on a problem getting it to boot properly, and that’s been getting me distracted from an idea I got a few days ago watching TC with a friend. There was some cop show on, and a scene showed a woman standing at a window in her kitchen. It caused me to flash back to an old photo of mine I took of a friend in profile that I had wanted to develop into a finished piece, but had set it aside and forgotten about it. I roughly laid out the composition I had in mind in this sketch.

I dug up the photo from my files (her name is Catharine,) and made a more detailed sketch of her. This will help me get familiar with the shapes and forms of her head. The hand is my own that I slimmed down some to make it look more feminine.

Now I guess I’ll get back to the computer problem. I need to get that out of the way so there won’t be any more distractions (I hope.)

This is taken from an old photo of mine. The fellow looked very forlorn for awhile, but I remember he got up suddenly as though he had been thinking long and hard on something, and then rushed off. I hope that whatever it was it all worked out.

Here are a few new portraits I’ve sketched. They’re taken from some low resolution video that I shot at a cafe and library in town. I had also given myself a task to draw them without doing any proportional measuring. Just go by sight alone. Some weren’t too successful, but these turned out okay.

I had spent a little time earlier in the day walking through a local museum, and had noticed how all the portraits there looked so unengaging. They often were so stagnantly posed with a distant stare that looked to be just objects rather than people. It wasn’t a new revelation, but something clear hit me about it at that time, driving me to do some sketching that showed people with a bit more personality revealed. This is why I like to use video. It tends to capture more expressions than I might get with a single photo.

My friend, Jennifer, has a dance class in Austin, which offers me a good opportunity to sit and draw the performers. I made a few quick gesture drawings, and this sketch of a woman sitting and watching the others.

Afterwards, I shot a photo of Jennifer in the parking lot looking up at a bright sun, and turned that into a sketch when I got home.

I was driving around the area of Dripping Springs, TX a few days ago with my friend, Mary. At one place we stopped to do some sketching. She was drawing some cattle across the road, and I was sketching her. Later, she had to run some errands in the nearby town of San Marcos, so I drew up a street corner while I waited for her outside. All in all, a productive and enjoyable day.

Here are a couple recent sketches I picked out from over the weekend. One of my friend, Pierre, enjoying a bottle of wine. The other is a quick sketch I made at the library. That one I didn’t have time to finish, but at least the library will still be there to go back to.